Sugar Rush

Am I the only one who's starting to think that the Trent Bridge post mortems are more than a little odd.

The suggestion seems to be that there is some sort of equivalence of guilt between putting jelly beans onto the pitch to upset a batsmans concentration and deliberately bowling a beamer at a batsman's head.

What England did was childish and, it transpires, rather counter-productive. What Sree Santh did was incredibly dangerous and totally against the laws and spirit of the game.

There has always been initimidation in fast bowling ever since people started bowling overarm. Everyone accepts that it's a given and very much part and parcel of the game. Bowlers talk about targetting the body by bowling bouncers and shortp itched deliveries, and this is a legitimate line of attack that batsmen can try to plan for and anticipate by where the ball pitches on the wicket. A beamer is a different matter entirely. Normally batsman are trying to pick up the length of the ball, so they are focussing on the bowlers hand, and then immediately on the strip of pitch in front of them. With a beamer, the ball by definition, doesn't land on that strip and the batsman therefore has no idea where it is.

Some are arguing that the beamer was 'accidental'. That's bollocks! Sree Santh knew exactly what he was doing. He bowled around two hundred deliveries in this test and nearly three hundred hundred at Lords without producing anything approaching a beamer. Why should we now have to accept that this was an accident? If it was, it was certainly a incredibly well timed one. As Michael Vaughan said at the time - ''What the f****** hell was that?''

In their inimitable fashion, the British media are going hard on the jelly bean angle. David Graveney was interrogated to a ludicrous extent about 'Beangate' on Radio 4 this morning, with no reference at all to an attempted 'beaning'. It's not exactly scientific, but do a quick search on Google and you find 70,400 possible links for 'jelly bean England India' and only 11800 for 'beamer England India'.

It's seriously being suggested that Alistair Cook, the alleged jelly bean culprit, should be suspended for the next test. Sree Santh has been docked half of his Trent Bridge fee, but that was for a shoulder barge!